Motown’s abuse of its artists

[Troy]

Below is an interesting comment to an article on the site, "The Music Moguls Who Bled Millions from a Black Legend" by Reclamation Project.  (Note: Someone from the Nation must have given me permission to run this article and I must have had an explicit reason to run it as I rarely republish entire articles that have been published elsewhere it is bad for SEO)

 

What do you think about the article linked at the end of the commentor's post ("Motown’s abuse of its artists")?   In an earlier version of the comment Minister Farrakhan was referred to as "Sinister Farra-Con."  I deleted that version as the comments were the same save the gratuitous diss.

 

J. Feldman's Cooments Follows:
Total racist, anti-Semitic rubbish. Louis Farrakhan's claims are unsupported. The fact is that without the Chess family, you never would have heard of Chuck Berry, Howlin' Wolf, Buddy Guy, and plenty of other Black artists. Yes, all artists--regardless of race, religion, nationality, or ethnicity--need their own proper legal representation and managers to look out for them. That's always been the case. Even the Beatles had to get involved in litigation to get their share of royalties due them. And that has nothing to do with whether or not the record companies, theater owners, etc. are White, Black, Jewish, Christian, or whatever.

 

Now, as part of getting proper management representation, one of the biggest names in the business years ago was Joe Glaser, a Jewish manager of musical artists. Joe Glasser was a feared person in the business industry, as he fought fiercely on behalf of his clients. Associated Booking Corporation, or "ABC" as it is also known, was incorporated on June 26, 1943, and is still in existence today. Glass and his company have represented such performers as Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Woody Herman, Dave Brubeck, Barbra Streisand, B.B. King, The Allman Brothers Band, T. Rex, and The Platters, to name a few. Does Louis Farrakhan have anything to say about Joe Glasser, who has done far more to benefit Black people than Farrakhan ever did? Nope.

 

And when Berry Gordy started his own record company and created the Motown empire, Gordy ripped off Black artists far worse than the Chess Brothers could ever do. But does Louis Farrakhan have anything to say about Berry Gordy? Of course not. This entire article is just racist, anti-Semitic BS. Here's just one article on Berry Gordy's ripoffs: https://english.elpais.com/...

[ProfD]

It is no secret that  Jewish gangsters built the entertainment industry in America.  The history speaks for itself.

 

The music business is one of the best examples of the greed and corruption that enabled white folks to make billions of dollars on the backs of talented Black people who just wanted to earning a living by playing music.

 

The mention of Berry Gordy is a classic case of whataboutism.  Gordy learned the tricks of the trade from somewhere or someone.  He didn't create that business or write up contracts out of thin air. 

 

Back in those days, Jews had no problem with finding *smart* people worth *mentoring* in Black communities.

 

A lack of knowledge of and/or failure to embrace and teach entrepreneurship and wealth-building has been an Achilles Heel for Black folks for a very long time.  It would eliminate the horror stories of folks getting swindled out of their money.

[aka Contrarian]

Yeah, black music promoters were very good students of white entrepreneurs. The popular girl singing group TLC claimed that their manager, former R&B artist known as "Pebbles", cheated them out of  millions and they took her to court.

Just recently a claim was made that Puff Daddy learned everything he knew about controlling and exploiting musical talent from Clive Davis, who was Whitney Houston's  Svengali. (Rapper mogul  Shug Knight didn't need a white role model to emulate when it came intimidating his stable of performers.)

Joe Jackson spent years trying to extricate his kids from the grip of Berry Gordy. Marvin Gaye also had a contentious relationship with Gordy stifling his career. Prince, of course, considered himself enslaved by Warner Brothers even if he  was a control freak, himself, when it came to his proteges.

Little Richard was someone else who said he was a victim of the satanic music management he sold his soul to. 

There's no business like show business when it comes to being taken advantage of by behind-the- scene parasites who come in all colors.

 

As for Farrakhan, I always wondered what he did to deserve his life of luxury and status, other than to tell black folks how misguided they were, and give a marathon Founders' day speech every year, spewing anti-semitism. And, if course, meekly going along  with the decision  to put super star Malcolm X away. 

[ProfD]

8 hours ago, aka Contrarian said:

Just recently a claim was made that Puff Daddy learned everything he knew about controlling and exploiting musical talent from Clive Davis, who was Whitney Houston's  Svengali.

Glad you mentioned it.  I started to but left it out to keep my post shorter.  

 

Clive Davis, a proud Jew and member of the alphabet soup community gave Puffy $40M to start his Bad Boy Record label in the 1990s. 

 

Puffy has a made a few headlines lately.  I believe it stems from biting the hands that fed him.

[Chevdove]

On 5/1/2024 at 4:19 PM, ProfD said:

Back in those days, Jews had no problem with finding *smart* people worth *mentoring* in Black communities.

 

Yes, and it still is probably going on today. I sat at a table in a 'Black' book clubs years back, and an Islamic 'brother' said pretty

much the same thing to me. He told me not to get drawn into the hype about Black talent and that although celebrities like 

'Michael Jordan' was indeed talented but in reality you can find and produce many other Black talent to achieve that same level

if fortune hunters wanted to do it. 

[Chevdove]

19 hours ago, aka Contrarian said:

 

There's no business like show business when it comes to being taken advantage of by behind-the- scene parasites who come in all colors.

 

As for Farrakhan, I always wondered what he did to deserve his life of luxury and status, other than to tell black folks how misguided they were, and give a marathon Founders' day speech every year, spewing anti-semitism. And, if course, meekly going along  with the decision  to put super star Malcolm X away. 

 

I do now wonder about Farrakhan. He is an awesome spokesperson though. But after recent research I am surprised about some of his early support coming from overseas interest and how his fabulous dwelling was financed. 

That article was very interesting in how some of the brilliant artist were not able to pocket the money that came in from their 

talent. This reminds me of one of my favorite films about how the Temptations made it to fame.

I remember one scene whereby they had to change their name because the earlier woman that produced them 

owned it.